Support rod steamers are used to steam traveling webs of textiles and the like.
Such a steamer is a large sheet metal box filled with steam and having entrance and exit openings between which a horizontal table formed by laterally interspaced rails is positioned. A number of rods are carried on and moved over this table for supporting the web in the form of loops depending from the rods. As the web enters the steamer, one of the rods is lifted so as to form the web into a loop, the rod then being lowered onto the table for movement along its length. At the exit end of the table the rod must be lifted from the table and carried back through the steamer for reuse. This action occurs as to each of the rods.
Endless traveling chains are positioned in the steamer, and these carry pairs of rod locks for the rod's ends. The chains are guided so that at the entrance end of the steamer the rods are successively lifted by their ends so as to successively form the loops in the web, each rod then being carried by the chains and rod locks to a position above the table and then downwardly deposited on the table, at which time each pair of rod locks for each rod must release the rod's ends so that the rod is free to move over the table. At the exit end of the table the chains are guided to carry each pair of rod locks upwardly so as to engage successively the ends of the rods, lift the rods from the table and carry the rods back to the entrance end of the steamer.
The rod locks each have a straight slot aligned with the lock's traveling direction, the slot having an inlet end through which the end of a rod can enter as the lock travels upwardly at the exit end of the table, and the slot having an outlet end through which the rod end can leave the slot while the rod lock travels downwardly at the table's inlet end.
Prior art means provided for locking in the rod ends after entering the slots of the rod locks for transport of the rods and for releasing the rod ends thereafter from the slots, have not been fully satisfactory. That means has used rotative elements rotated by cams in the traveling path of the lock to both lock and unlock the parts with spring biased balls and recesses serving to hold the elements against inadvertent rotation during transport of the rods.